Ruth+Lemaire

On April 30, 1917, Mrs. Ruth Lemaire, age 24, died at West Side Hospital in Chicago from complications of a criminal abortion. In her deathbed statement she implicated 50-year-old Dr. Lillian Hobbs. However, the coroner's jury did not place blame on Hobbs, and the case came to naught.

Prosecution was possibly considered moot, since Hobbs was convicted of murder in the abortion deaths of Alda Christopherson (February, 1916) and Ellen Matson (November, 1917).

These fatal abortions were typical of pre-legalization abortions in that they were performed by a [|physician].

Note, please, that with general public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good. For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see [|Abortion Deaths 1910-1919].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Source: [|Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database]

include component="tagCloud"